Nikon Introduces Coolpix P1000 with 125x Zoom

The Coolpix P1000 is the follow up to the P900, which I understand will remain on the market. (Therefore I would rather not use the term "successor," which suggests replacement.)

 

These are the key features:

• Sensor: 16MP, 1/2.3" CMOS
  
• Lens: 125x, 4.3 to 539mm zoom, 24-3000mm 35mm equivalent, f2.8 - 8, additional 2x digital zoom, 77mm filter size
  
• Vibration Reduction: optical for still image capture, and optical + electronic for video
  
• Electronic Viewfinder + 3.2" vari-angle LCD
  
• Video: HD and 4K 25p and 30p
  
• ISO 100-6400
  
• File Formats: JPEG and RAW (NRW, not NEF)
  
• Flash: standard hot shoe that is iTTL compatible
  
• Battery: EN-EL20a
  
• Memory Medium: one SD card slot
  

The Coolpix P1000 will be available in September, 2018 with a suggested price of US$999.95

 

Product images copyright Nikon, Inc.

 

Link to Nikon Corporate news on the Coolpix P1000:

Nikon | News | Nikon releases the COOLPIX P1000 compact digital camera

 

Nikon USA link:

https://www.nikonusa.com/en/about-nikon/press-room/press-release/jioxj4oa/The-Superzoom-COOLPIX-P1000-Offers-an-Astounding-125x-Zoom-to-Capture-Your-World-and-Beyond-.html

Does anyone here use the P900? What kind of experiences did you have using it?

 

I tried it a couple of times in a store and the zoom is staggering but the focusing was quite slow. I guess in daylight it would be a bit faster?

 

There is a lunar eclipse coming which is expected to last quite long; I guess this type of camera would be well suited to shooting the moon though the eclipse is perhaps too dim? With lunar tracking perhaps it would be possible.

It certainly differentiates itself from a smart phone (which is one task that a compact has to achieve, these days), but 1415g/3.12lb is a lot of compact, especially if the battery is so tiny that it can only take 250 shots. And DPReview says 146x119x181mm. For reference, the D5 is 160x159x92mm and 1405g. f/8 at 539mm is f/45 at 300mm, which probably explains why the sample bird image in the "corporate news" announcement looks soft. Worth $1000? Maybe, but it's up against cameras like the RX10 series, with 1" sensors.

 

Still, it may turn up in places like Yellowstone. I complained that my 200-500+TC14 didn't have enough reach, so I can't argue that "3000mm" wouldn't have been nice.

 

About 1400mm will fill the short edge of a full frame with the Moon, I believe. I've had trouble with the dimness of a lunar eclipse before, without tracking; I might finally try to wheel out my star tracker (I believe the rotation of the Earth is more significant than the motion of the Moon), although it may be better just to stack.

I don’t know much about bridge cameras, but I am sure hand holding anything over the equivalent of 1000mm is challenging. The P900 has dropped to $600. Discounts will likely appear after a year or so.

I thought the moon photos were soft and lacked contrast, but liked the lion photo at 2000mm, the maximum focal length for the P900. I don't know how well the P900 performs zoomed all the way out.

 

I believe the rotation of the Earth is more significant than the motion of the Moon

 

About 28 times more significant.

Some trackers include solar and lunar modes with adjusted speed of rotation.

 

I think some of the sample images at Nikon's Finnish site are a little soft, but others seem very good. Of course the image resolution is not the full resolution of the original file but something appropriate for online sharing. The colour and contrast of the monkey and bird shots seem impressive. I can see how the quality of the long distance long focal length shots would not excel (but then it is a difficult task to solve at this price level and atmospheric effects contribute to the results).

These bridge cameras are probably good for those who prefer something more sophisticated than a phone camera and have something they can carry with them all the time, but it is not going to perform miracles at 3000mm (equivalent) or even 1000mm. Other than the moon images, please keep in mind that most of the samples are under fairly good light. Such a tiny sensor and a slower lens on the longer end is going to have limitations under dimmer light. Once you need to add a tripod, some of the portability advantages disappear.

How does this rate in pixel density to the J5, D7200 and D850?

I think my concern is that it's so huge in order to incorporate the lens length, it's not such a "portable bridge" camera any more. It's certainly heavier than a low-end DSLR. In fact, my D850 currently has a tiny 4x macro on it, so if it's heavier than this zoom it would be only because it's got an L-plate on it.

 

How does this rate in pixel density to the J5, D7200 and D850?

 

Well, if 539mm is 3000mm in Nikon equivalence-speak (4608/3456 is a 4:3 sensor not 3:2, so equivalence is iffy), that's a crop of 5.57(ish) - DPReview says 6.17x4.55mm. It's just shy of 16MP. So tiny pixels compared with any of them, but there have probably been higher density sensors, especially in phones. Were you planning to pull it apart and stick a different lens on it?

Yup, ever since 'they' disabled the 200-500mm on the J5, the search for practical reach has been intresting.

If i use a dumb mount i can pop my 600mm f4 on my J5 and set it on my Star Adventurer that has a lunar tracking setting. I might well need the 1kg counterweight

I've now got a couple of weeks to remember Polar Alignment.....

The P1000 has a 1/2.3" sensor, which is 6.17x4.55mm. See the table in the wiki page:

 

Image sensor format - Wikipedia

"About 1400mm will fill the short edge of a full frame with the Moon, I believe."

 

- No, the moon's image would only be about 12mm diameter with a 1400mm lens. You'd need the maximum zoom of that P1000 to fill its tiny sensor with the moon.

 

Still, it's an incredible piece of optical design to produce a 125x zoom lens with even 'just acceptable' image quality. It makes the 26x zoom on my P100 look a bit puny. And the P1000 can shoot RAW. But then again, it is nearly 10 times the price I paid for the P100.

 

BTW. Has anybody bothered to work out how big that lens would be if scaled up to DX or full-frame size?

Ooh - I forgotten that the Star Adventurer has lunar tracking. I've had one for a couple of years and every chance I've had to use it has been clouded out. I was ignoring it until winter, but I should give it a go if I get the chance.

 

You're right, Joe. I'd worked out the "half a degree", but then divided the sensor size by two and forgot to divide the angle. I always end up cropping when shooting moon shots, so I never have a feel for the actual focal length required. I've seen 100x zooms for television cameras (they're the ones that make the Nikkor 800mm look like a bargain) - this is, admittedly, a bit smaller.

 

A 3000mm f/45 has the same diameter, by definition, but the length would depend a lot on how telephoto the design was. Unless you actually mean what an f/8 3000mm lens would look like - in which case 375mm across the front. That's about the size (and possibly focal length) of a 15" telescope.

Friends don't let friends buy bridge cameras. Hopefully Nikon's bankers don't ask too many questions about the decision to divert scarce resources to designing and making this thing. Truly laughable.

c_watson, Nikon don't have "scarce" engineering resources. They are spending a lot on R&D. What the cut down heavily on is their international marketing and sales staff and in some areas, service (which meant outsourcing for now).

 

The superzoom integral lens camera is the only type of compact camera which is not significantly affected by the smartphone. It solves a completely different problem that the smartphone can't touch. It makes sense for Nikon to continue developing products in this area because these products are popular. Whether you or I like them is beside the point.

 

Nikon also make a 800/5.6 if you want high end results and have 21k€ to spend. If I'm not mistaken, it is peerless in MTF.

Friends don't let friends buy bridge cameras. Hopefully Nikon's bankers don't ask too many questions about the decision to divert scarce resources to designing and making this thing. Truly laughable.

 

While the bridge camera concept is a little passe now, it fills (or filled) a gap between big, heavy and expensive DSLRs and crappy little point 'n' shoot compacts. Hence the 'bridge' name.

 

I found a bridge camera to be an ideal travel camera when the point of the holiday was to just have a holiday, and not to compose a travelogue portfolio.

 

I do have reservations about the current megazoom offerings though. They've got too big and too expensive to fill the gap between compact and DSLR/mirrorless. Maybe the 'bridge' nomenclature should be dropped? Replaced by 'barely portable' perhaps.

 

And as I've pointed out before; huge focal lengths are mainly limited in image quality by the sheer amount of air between lens and intended subject.

Edited July 10, 2018 by rodeo_joe|1

Yes. I buy the "coat pocket camera with a decent zoom" argument for these things existing, but the P1000 is way oversized for that. Not only does it not fit in a coat, it doesn't even fit in a standard toploader bag (how I'd usually carry an SLR minimally). I'm fairly sure I've got my Pentax 645 in that. At shorter (and mostly more useful) focal lengths it's going to be outperformed by any of the pocketable zooms with a bigger sensor (and maybe a phone); at longer focal lengths, I suspect people will be disappointed with the performance. You could probably do better by digiscoping.

 

So, an interesting technical exercise, and I suspect some people will buy it (and regret it) for the specs, but the number of people for whom this is actually the best solution feels vanishingly small. The RX100VI or ZS200 are extremely flexible for pocketable cameras; if you want something that needs a camera bag (or a very big pocket), the RX10 series and FZ1000 are very capable for what they are. So it probably comes down to how useful an iffy 3000mm could be over 600mm (equivalent) in the real world. Despite my experience in Yellowstone, I'm going to say "not very".

 

I'd be more interested if Nikon decided to compete with the RX100 crowd, but they killed that project. I recently bought a (cheap, used) Coolpix A solely for Nikon Wednesdays, but its equivalent aperture is about the same as the smaller RX100 I already had - and that has a zoom and more pixels, and is only a mk1.

c_watson, Nikon don't have "scarce" engineering resources. They are spending a lot on R&D. What the cut down heavily on is their international marketing and sales staff and in some areas, service (which meant outsourcing for now).

 

The superzoom integral lens camera is the only type of compact camera which is not significantly affected by the smartphone. It solves a completely different problem that the smartphone can't touch. It makes sense for Nikon to continue developing products in this area because these products are popular. Whether you or I like them is beside the point.

 

Nikon also make a 800/5.6 if you want high end results and have 21k€ to spend. If I'm not mistaken, it is peerless in MTF.

 

The usual Nikon apologia, sliced thick. Mike Johnston's take on the P1000 at the Online Photographer can't be beat for accuracy and concision: "silly."

 

Popular? Proof? Where? Can't really imagine smartphone users jonesing to carry this brick around for any reason, much less the chance to catch all those "missed" telephoto shots.

 

A product like this squanders Nikon's "brand equity." They need all they can get. Let's hope their mirrorless products got designed and developed in another building at Sendai.

Can't really imagine smartphone users

:p

I don't find this particularly attractive either, just preferable to any phone for any photographic application.

I recall the tiny ads at the back of Popular Mechanics touting 1000x telescopes and microscopes for ridiculously low prices, compared to hundreds of dollars for more professional quality versions with 50-100x magnification. Fortunately I never had enough money to actually buy one and experience its shortcomings (but some friends did, so I know what I wasn't missing).

 

A 3000 mm (equivalent) plastic zoom in a plastic camera would be better off on the last page of a pulp magazine than the front page of a Nikon website.

Well, I'm a smartphone user (heck, I work for Samsung), but I've no problem carting around a DSLR and big lenses. I also have a pocket-sized compact (more than one, in fact). My issue is size (and cost) vs performance. I bought the 50mm f/1.8 but not the (Nikkor) 50mm f/1.4 for this reason, I bought the V1 and Coolpix A only after they were under £300 (used, for the latter) for this reason, and I avoided the Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 for that reason. I'm sure the price will drop rapidly to whatever the market deems appropriate, but the bulk of the P1000 suggests a dedicated photographic tool, not your typical "take it on your holidays" big zoom, especially if the focal range where it's most useful is going to be covered well by "the camera you have with you" (cellphone or otherwise).

 

I'm going whale watching in a month or so; if I were going any later, I'd report back whether it was full of people with these. I'm sticking to my 200-500. :-)

The usual Nikon apologia, sliced thick.

 

I am simply explaining why Nikon make this type of a camera, since it seems some do not "get it". There is a small market for a high-end compact camera such as RX100, Fujifilm X100F, Leica Q etc. The majority of compact cameras have been decimated in sales by the smartphone, but the superzoom compact has remained unaffected. It answers to a different need than the smartphone (almost all of which are equpped by fixed focal length moderately wide angle lenses, completely unable to take an image of a bird high up on a branch). There are many people who want to capture images of what they see, for record and communicative purposes. They are happy with decent image quality (similar to a smartphone but with a long lens) if the camera is practical to take along. We can debate what that means and whether this particular superzoom camera (at 1.4kg) qualifies (it may well be overkill). Of my non-photographer friends, surprisingly many of them like and prefer to have a superzoom (but not necessarily this particular model).

 

Since the purpose is not aesthetic perfection or even printing but communication, I can understand that this type of a camera can be effective at such a task, given enough light.

 

Mike Johnston's take on the P1000 at the Online Photographer can't be beat for accuracy and concision: "silly."

 

He doesn't appear very knowledgeable about telephoto photography. Johnston comments: "And that's probably the only thing the P1000's 3000mm-e reach is best for: surveillance of any kind. It's a spy camera!"

 

But this is not what this camera does well: for long distance photography you need a lens with extremely high image quality. What this camera can do is get shots of birds sitting on tree branches; reasonably close-by subjects of smallish subjects. In bright daylight. Long-distance telephoto shots from a superzoom compact won't be all that good (lens aberrations and atmospheric degradation have a cumulative effect) and to get good long distance results you need good seeing conditions and an extremely high quality lens. I believe paparazzi's commonly use 300/2.8 and longer supertele primes for their ability to photograph subjects even in the dark. If you check Nikon's example images, of the telephoto shots the best quality are ones of the monkey, the bird etc. and the moon is relatively fuzzy (because of high magnification and atmospherics).

 

Popular? Proof? Where?

 

I don't have numbers but several of my friends (interestingly, with PhDs, so they're perhaps not the dumbest of the lot and know what they want) like compact cameras with long zooms. Nikon say that in their compact camera sales, only the long zoom compacts (or bridge cameras, or superzoom compacts) have remained unaffected by the decline of dedicated camera sales due to the smartphone, which is why they pursue this type of product while stopping development of most other types of compacts. The other compacts don't differentiate themselves enough from a smartphone to be worth using, in the typical consumer's perspective. However, neither a basic compact (with 28-85 or whatever equivalent zoom) nor a smartphone can shoot the kind of subjects that a P900 or similar can. The basic compact may well give better quality within its range of focal lengths but that's not relevant when all a typical user does any more is send pics to their friends or social media and look at them in tiny displays. There is no need for high quality in this kind of a basic visual communication device - it is not used to take indoor available light photos of people. I have long been wondering why people buy high resolution cameras in such numbers and then the only dissemination of the images is via smartphone displays where they only see 2% of the detail captured in the original. They don't make prints (too much hassle and cost, ironically) and don't publish images in print. It's like the serious camera is going towards higher and higher quality and the actual dissemination of images is via lower quality media where speed and convenience matter most. It's a paradox.

 

If you want to take indoor available light photos of people, then you get a different type of camera. Quite simple.

 

Can't really imagine smartphone users jonesing to carry this brick around for any reason, much less the chance to catch all those "missed" telephoto shots.

 

Practically every regular person uses a smartphone these days, there is no need to make them into a category. People who want to document subjects such as birds or small details of what they see at some distance when traveling etc. or just want to explore and make a record of what they see (in daylight) and don't want to carry a whole bag of camera equipment often use this kind of a camera. The sharp part of the human visual field is quite narrow and it's only natural to want to record what the fovea sees. The smartphone simply cannot do this at all (unless equipped with an attached long lens).

 

A product like this squanders Nikon's "brand equity."

 

Hardly. Nikon also make spotting scopes for bird watchers, and you know what they do to get photographs of the birds they see? They mount either a compact camera or a smartphone at the spotting scope and take the pic. I am willing to entertain the thought that the P1000 produces better image quality of tiny birds at distance than a spotting scope and a smartphone. To acquire a DSLR or mirrorless ILC lens with similar angle of view would be more than an order of magnitude more expensive, if it is available at all.

 

Because of its comparatively large size, the bird and wildlife watcher (as opposed to a serious amateur or professional photographer) seems like it could be an important market for the P1000.

 

Let's hope their mirrorless products got designed and developed in another building at Sendai.

 

First, Nikon Sendai don't make compact cameras. Second, the cameras are designed in a different location than where manufacturing takes place.

Edited July 11, 2018 by ilkka_nissila

I'm going whale watching in a month or so; if I were going any later, I'd report back whether it was full of people with these. I'm sticking to my 200-500. :)

 

For whale watching you probably need fast focusing (at least for a breach) so this type of a camera probably isn't fast enough to do that. Also high fps may be needed. This camera is more for static subjects. Still, I would be surprised if no one (in a large party) was using some king of long zoom compact, depending of course on whether the trip is planned for photographers or for tourists.

An illustration. This is what I saw last week in Porkkala. There is a mother and fawn on the left and my guess is two adult males contesting on the right (I am really just guessing). This is a maybe 1.2x crop from a 300mm lens. To capture some close-up of the males up in arms, 2000-3000mm would have been required. There is plenty of light. Now, I don't have and never will have such a lens. But wouldn't it have been nice to pick up a superzoom camera just to be able to get a record of the fighting, even if it is with some motion blur perhaps it would have added some effect to the action. Not being an owner of such a camera I don't know how it would have come out. A tripod was available and a car window could have been used as alternative support. I know my friends would have loved to see such a close-up. Another type of shot that would have been interesting would be for me to move to the left so as to align the four deer into a closer frame, but that too would have required a longer lens.

 

I am aware that the best photos are typically made in close range (I typically shoot with shorter lenses where the images are quite crisp in comparison) but sometimes the goal is not a fantastic photographic quality image but just a record of an event that you could see and with some optics, make a visual record of.

 

Edited July 11, 2018 by ilkka_nissila